Car and Driver cruising to new Ann Arbor offices

Car and Driver, the nation's largest monthly automotive magazine, is positioning itself for changing conditions in the modern media by emphasizing its growing Web presence, while reinforcing its reporting with more test space for vehicles at new offices in Ann Arbor.

The magazine is moving to 10,000-square-foot offices in Eisenhower Commerce Center in May, after 30 years at a site on Hogback Road, where its facilities were spread throughout three suites.

"One of the primary motivations is to pull all of this stuff together into one space," said Csaba Csere, editor-in-chief of Car and Driver.

The magazine will move about 35 people to the new offices, which will allow more space for a growing Internet department. The magazine has added about 10 staffers for Web work in the past two years.

Its print publication has a circulation of 1.3 million, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulation. It publishes six global editions and buyers guides for cars and trucks. Its Web site gets 1 million page views and 200,000 visitors per month.

Car and Driver, which reviews vehicles and reports on industry trends, is part of a hub of automotive activity in Ann Arbor. Automobile Magazine is based in the Pretzel Bell Building on Liberty Street downtown, and the region is home to a number of test facilities for automakers, including Mercedes and Honda.

Several top executives, including Ford Motor Co. Executive Chairman Bill Ford Jr. and General Motors Vice Chairman Bob Lutz also live locally.

Car and Driver's new site will also feature space for staffers to examine and weigh vehicles for articles. Currently, it only has office space.

"A lot of their writers are test drivers as well, so they wanted flexibility with that," said Ted McMullen of McMullen Co., which owns the Eisenhower Commerce Center.

The move will be watched closely by Car and Driver's parent company, Hachette Filipacchi Media, which is considering moving its 300,000-square-foot offices in midtown Manhattan.

HFM also publishes Road & Track, Elle, Woman's Day and other magazines. It is a division of Lagardere, a French media company.

"This is a bit of a test case," Csere said.

The move also poses challenges for Car and Driver's staffers, who will move while producing the magazine.

"We have to integrate our move with our production schedule," Csere said.

The magazine chose the location, near I-94 and State Street, for easy access to the Chrysler Proving Grounds in Chelsea, which it rents out occasionally for test driving.

Car and Driver officials also considered other sites on the State Street corridor.

The 215,300-square-foot Eisenhower Commerce Center lists space for $13 a square foot. It has three suites totaling 66,590 square feet available, according to listings.